Eastern State Penitentiary: America’s Most Haunted Prison

How does a prison design for social reform become known as the most haunted prison in America? Eastern State Penitentiary open with progressive ideals, but developed a reputation for riots, torture, extreme isolation, psychological breakdown. More than eighty five thousand prisoners were held there during its operation. Welcome to the Shadow Signal, The Frequency of the Unknown. I'm Josh Rutledge.

And I'm Stephen Gearheart. Together we dive deep into high strangeness, UFOs, cryptids, the paranormal psychic phenomenon, and the hidden truths that echo just beneath the surface. Somewhere between reality and myth lies. The Signal Can you hear it? Tune in? The Shadow Signal is live and welcome back,

everybody to another episode of The Shadows Signal podcast. Shadow No, I am your host here. We're gonna get I'm gonna get copyrighted off of that. Come on now, I think I think at this point they're they're under public domain. We're probably okay, okay, no, I don't know, but anyways, I am Stepan Gearhart, your

host for the evening, joined as ever by my co host who is illustrious and beautiful mister Josh rutligs, what's happening, partner. Doing fantastic man. You know, springtime is here, and so with it comes all the allergies and the sneezing and the oh. Yeah, same here, same here. So in Kentucky right now.

Seventy degrees. So today it's seventy degrees in Louisville. This is March fifteenth that we're recording this, and tomorrow we're supposed to get snow. It is presently seventy degrees in Phoenix as we're recording this three hours earlier obviously, but we're not expecting snow tomorrow, no.

We yeah, we are, and then it's gonna warm back up again, like in the next day or two after that. So it's actually been unseasonably warm here, uh like in the nineties already. So uh yeah, I don't know if that's, you know, hopefully not an indication that it's going to be an incredibly hot summer, but yeah, we'll see.

Yep. Well, speaking of hot summers, let's uh, let's go and move on to our first topic, which I don't know what that has to do with hot hot summers. It's a hot summer. It is a hot go summer, So let's go in and talk about our psychic word of the week.

The psychic whoa, oh oh, all right. Psychic Word of the Week is brought to you by the Encyclopedic Psychic Dictionary from Junji Bletzer pa rest in peace, honeybearer. I love you, but I never got to meet you. I flipped through and I always try to find something that catches my eye that may have to do with

what we're going to be talking about today. But the phrase that came up here was sub human being. Subhuman being is what grabbed my attention, and it says it's esoteric. Says an inferior entity or a new soul mind belonging to the human being. Kingdom dwelling in the lower astral planes exists in a body that appears unpleasant but shows

human characteristics. Is half man and half animal or half bird, capable of communicating with psychics who do not know the rules of psychism, fed by the energy of low negative thoughts and acts found in the earth plane. Interesting. I wonder if any of those beings would also fit the description often used for a nighthag.

Or even I thought of a cryptid like uh, mothman or things like that that seem to be half man half something, you know. Yep. Yeah, also makes you know, not not to necessarily go too far on the religious side of things. But you know, some some eat you know, angels or even

sometimes describe demons be in the same way. Mmm. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, very interesting. Yeah, it's just kind of creepy because they classify them as human beings first, not as like you know, not as the other half first. So like would nephelim be considered sub human? Maybe maybe half man half half bird.

Yeah. Also it's interesting that they said half animal or bird. Yeah, I would I would. I would have included birds as animals. Yeah. Well, you know what, don't don't jump on Juneji Blitzer's stuff. Doctor Blitzer is she knows what she's doing. Okay, Yeah, maybe she meant mammals versus birds. Maybe maybe I want to be half whale, which half

but like like a centaur, you know, but like half whale. So like my upper body is the same size as it is right now, but then the lower part of me is a big blue. Whale, so like a mermaid, no man, a merman. But still is it that?

Yeah? But they just have a little fishtail. I want giant blue whale body. But my human body is the same size as it is right now. It sounds like, you know, a size envy is an issue there, Stefan. Yeah, I don't want to little the

little little tail. I want a big tail, as. Big, big, largest tail on earth. Big. And I'm sure the whale uh lower half reproductive piece has nothing to do with. It, or I would have said a sperm whale. Yeah. I don't think lockness alid kind of stuff. Anyways, Well,

that's an interesting psychic word of the week, So thank you for that Stuffan. You're welcome. So this week we're going to be talking about something, surprisingly we have never talked about. One of the most next. To Waverley is considered one of the most haunted places

in America is Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So let's get cracking. Let's talk about. ESP baby, Yep, the main story, all right. So I thought it would be good to start us off with not necessarily diving directly into the prison itself, but thinking about you know what, like today we just think of

prison reform as being the kind of accepted way of you know, criminal justice kind of you know, final termination if you will, unless you live in a state that it still allows uh corporate you know, corporate punishment or the death penalty. But before the seventeen hundreds, the like, the normal thing for punishment would have been whipping or flogging,

branding with hot irons, mutilations such as ear cropping or finger removal, geez stocks, and pillories. I don't know what a pilori is, but I guess you know, but it's in it's in public squares, so like basically you see, like you're out there, you're hanging out, people are walking back throwing rotten food stuff or public beatings.

Yeah. Wow. So I mean that was up until like when this new prison prison system was developed, which is called the Pennsylvania system was developed in the early in the early seventeen hundreds. So I mean that would have like this,

the idea of penitent traies is a relatively new and in the history of the world concept. But they had like dungeons and stuff. Yeah, I mean, well, but you know, and I would imagine that those dungeons were like a throw them in there and forget about them situations, Yeah exactly. But the also in addition to all those really corporal

punishment things, you also had public shaming, so you know, stood out in the public and basically people would walk by and chide you for the things that you did adult er, adulterer or whatever. Then they also had debt and work prisons, so if you you know, you could work off community service if you will. But it wasn't

like you know, cleaning spray painting off of the fort. It was you know, manual labor. And the conditions in those things were really bad. There was overcrowding, there was disease, there was very little. Food the way of rocks. Yeah. Uh, many prisoners had to pay for their own

food and bedding while they were in a prison. So and then the last kind of thing, you know, again this is before the piary system was exile. So you know, you couldn't come back into the colony. You had to become a wilderness man. That's where Sasquatch came from. That's where.

And what's really interesting is, uh, during that transportation exile thing, Okay, Britain actually transforded prisoners to North America as the. End I know, and I know Australia. And Australia as the exile. So you know, uh, North America was populated all lot with braggards and thieves apparently JF which if somebody's thinking about a new podcast, Braggards

and thieves would make a really good podcast name it would. And then of course the final thing, final stage was hanging, execution, firing, squad, burning at the stake, beheady youah, yeah, all of that kind of stuff. So in the seventeen hundreds, many thinkers believed that these punishments were barbaric and in effect because they were, and so reformers like Benjamin Rush in the

Pennsylvania Prison Society argued that punishment should focus on reflection, repentance, and moral reform, not just attacking the body, but really trying to address the mind. So this led to the Pennsylvania system, which replaced the public punishment with silent solitary confinement intended to produce spiritual repentance. Of course, it's always about religion.

Right, So what's interesting here is that that spiritual repentance, repentance, that's where we get penitentiary. It's a place for repentance, pentance. Penitent can pass. Yeah, well apparently not, because eighty five thousand people went through it, but the reform system designed to be more humane, turned out to be more psychologically devastating because they were solitary confinement. Yep, you know. They

in like today's prisons, when there's a solitary confinement, sometimes the individual's insolitary will still exercise in a common area amongst other prisoners. They may be in a separate little area that's only for solitary confinement, but they're still outside with other as relatively you know, close. But these actually they were the extra state. They're outdoor time wasn't completely

alone as well, so they were completely separated from every other other than guards, every other human. Which is insane. I mean, I know there's still even a movement today to get rid of solitary confinement, so as it is now. And the idea at the time was is that while

they're in solitary confinement, they're supposed to reflect on their crimes, read the Bible, feel remorse, and become morally reformed. Ye king, what's again. I don't want to get too far down the religious track here, but there's a lot of there's a lot of morally questionable things that happened in the Bible, So maybe asking them to read the Bible is not

the best thing for moral reform, but right, yeah, I agree. So some of the things that talking about from a psychological impact, Okay, this is you know, maybe you know, this could lead to our conversations later down the road around you know, kind of the tortured souls, if you will. So they slept alone, worked alone, exercised alone. They never

saw any other prisoners. Prisoners were forbidden to speak, They could not talk to other inmates or guards. The only regular human interaction was often with a chaplain or the warden. Sure when prisoners were moved through the prison, they wore hoods over their heads. This prevented them from recognizing each other. That's interesting.

Each prisoner had their own cell with a skylight which was called the Eye of God, a small exercise yard in a workspace for crafts or labor. And like I said before, the idea was that they were just going to sit there and read the Bible, meditate, or seek redemption. Right.

So the reason why reformers thought this was more humane than the old way was that they thought it was more civilized than corporate punishment. And you know, in a way it is right. And instead of whipping criminals or executing them. The prison would give them time to repent and restore their moral character. But what it produced in

many prisoners is lots of mental illness, hallucinations, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, and a complete psychological breakdown. Yeah. Charles Dickens once visited the prison and he said this. This is in eighteen forty two. He wrote that prolonged isolation was worse than the torture of any body. Dang.

So you know again. Even though the system was controversial at the time, it influenced prisoners around the world. More than three hundred prisons globally adopted versions of it during the nineteenth century. However, most eventually abandoned strict solitary confinement because of its psychological effects. So Eastern State Penitentiary the first prison to adopt this new method of reform. Okay,

so oh first YEP opened in eighteen twenty nine. The architect of it was John Haviland and at the time it was the most expensive building in the United States. Had a revolutionary radical l block design using kind of a hub and spoke layout, and some visitors that included you know, Alexis D. Taco Bell probably saying his last

name wrong and Charles Taco Bell. Yeah, that's that's where they got it. Somebody his name like, oh Taco Bell, that sounds am. There's another one trying to run for the border. Another quote from Charles Dickens is that it was rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. So, uh, Les, I'm gonna

skip past that because I really covered it in depth. So the. Some of the punishment methods, if you will, just gonna okay, make sure that was still relevant to the prison and not the old system. I'll cut that part out. So the punishant methods were the water bath, where a prisoner

was doused with ice water chained outside in freezing temperatures until the water froze on the skin. Jeez. The mad chair, prisoners were strapped tightly to a chair, could remain for hours or days. Limbs swelled from lack of circulation. Straight jackets used for extended punishment could cut

off circulation. The whole was an underground punishment cell located below Cell Block fourteen, and it was basically no light, no plumbing, concrete walls, extremely confined, and prisoners were sometimes held there for weeks or months in the whole. The iron gag one of the most brutal punishments. Hands chained behind their back, iron clamp attached to the tongue, ah

and chains connected to the hands movement caused the tongue to tear painfully. Oh yeah, this was supposed to be so much better. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean from the Catholic Church, the people that brought you the Spanish imposition comes the next thing, you know, breakthrough in prison development, moral reform. Yeah.

So some of the famous prisoners that came through the prison. Al Capone, hey are right, was in there from nineteen twenty nine until nineteen thirty. He was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. Allegedly his cell contained furniture rugs and a radio. Of course it did.

Yeah, special treatment for special people. Yeah, money, money, money, money. Yeah. Capone did claim that he was haunted in prison, and I'm going to get into that haunting a little bit later though he well actually making it to now. So he was haunted by the ghost of Jimmy Clark,

who was a victim of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Oh so it was a personal ghost. Yeah. Legend says that Capone believed Clark's ghost followed him. Other inmates heard him screaming or talking to someone, and Capone later sought help from a psychic. Dang I never heard that before.

Some stories claimed the haunting followed him to Alcatraze Federal Penitentiary as well, which would make sense if it was a personal haunting. It doesn't matter where you go, you can't escape it. No, so Some of the other people that were imprisoned there were Willie Sutton, known as Slick Willie or the Actor. He was sentenced for twenty five

to fifty years. He escaped with eleven inmates through a tunnel in nineteen forty five and was recaptured the same day. Good Old Slick Willie, He's Greasy Victor Babe, and Andreoli. Convicted of murdering Pennsylvania State trooper John Brosk. He was sentenced to life. He escaped in nineteen forty three, and he was killed by police during a capture attempt. Frieda.

Frost excellent alliteration on the name there convicted of poisoning her husband, one of the few female prisoners. Women made up less than three percent of inmates. So technically co ed yeah, so to speak. The last female prisoner trans heard in nineteen twenty three. So just kind of a very brief We're going to

get into some specific hauntings here in a little bit, but just generally, visitors report apparitions, whispers, footsteps, shadow figures, cold spots, feeling touched or scratched. So yeah. Some of the more haunted cell blocks include cell blocks cell Block twelve or reports include echoing voices, laughter, whispering, shadow figures, Cell Block four with witnesses report including ghostly faces appearing

in the walls, overwhelming sense of dread. Well, there's a prison, so I can imagine that energy persists to stay well. And keep in mind that, I mean, they haven't really modified anything for the most part, so all the stells cells are still solitary confinement. I mean, anytime you, for

a lot of people, even if you're not claustrophobic, if you go into just a really closed in space for any long period of time, you're going to develop that kind of sense of dread yep. Cell Block six reports include black shadow figures moving along the walls, silhouettes sliding across corridors, and visitors also report cold spots unexplained dread,

and feeling touched. So now we'll get into some of the haunting accounts. So the locksmith incident, this is in cell block four. Witness was Gary Johnson. He was a locksmith and a contractor. This was during the nineteen nineties when they were doing some restoration work. Okay, So Johnson was removing an old lock from a cell door in

cell block four. When the lock came free, he reported feeling a powerful negative force. He said the cells seemed to release a wave of energy. According to Johnson, ghostly faces appeared in the cell walls, distorted figures formed in the masonry, and a shadow figure rushed toward him. Johnson reportedly dropped his tools and left the building immediately. This

story is often cited by the prisoner's own historical tours. So next up is called the guard tower figure. So this is multiple visitors and staff have witnessed this. Several visitors over the years have reported seeing a human silhouette standing in one of the guard towers. The figure appears motionless and disappears when approached or when lights are directed

toward it. Typically depicted as being tall, wearing what appears to be a guard's cap and standing in a watch posture. No staff member has ever been confirmed to be in the tower when sightings occurred. Yeah, it makes you wonder, you know, is that you know, just. Energy leftover or actual ghost of a guard that died

there or died somewhere else and that was just where they went back to. Yeah, if that was the place they felt like, if they felt so committed to being a guard in that place that when they died they went back to serve there. Yeah, crazy, I mean, but it also could very much be you know,

residual kind of you know, stone tape theory type situation where it's just exactly playing on repeat. Yep. So next up we have the shadow figures of cell block six. So this is seen by both tour guides and visitors, and they see black silhouettes sliding across the walls,

shadow figures moving quickly between cells, and witnesses say the shadows move independently of light sources the shadow, suggesting they are not simply reflections. Right, So if you if you go to if you go to do a tour, you should definitely have an opportunity to check out cell block six. Yeah, for sure.

The whispering corridor. So this has been logged by multiple paranormal investigators. This is kind of the central hub of the prison is where this is located, and it includes whispering voices, faint conversations, someone calling a name, and footsteps approaching from behind. This all really feels like just residual type stuff in my opinion. Again, it's just locked, and yeah,

it's still creepy for sure. Yeah, when investigators though turn around, of course, no one's. Standing there, nope. And audio recorders have occasionally captured these things, as you know, unexplained voices, and none have been verified as paranormal, but they haven't. You know, you can't, can't prove a negative.

So yeah, if no one's there and you get it on tape, what else remains must be the truth? Right exactly? The calckling voice in cell Bock twelve. This is often by night tour groups. Cell Block twelve has reports of echo, laughter, strange cackling sounds. Can you give me a cackling sound there?

Stuff in there? You go, that'll work, distant voices. Visitors often report the sounds occurring when the building is otherwise quiet and no other groups are nearby. Yeah, dude, if I heard some cackling, I'd be gone. I'm gone. You're gone. You're not gonna stick around. You're not gonna cackle back. Nope, I'm gone.

I don't trust cacklers. Well, it makes you, I mean, given the psychological nature of the penitentiary, it makes you wonder even though they weren't allowed to talk to each other, if like, you know, in the nighttime other inmates, if they did, they probably talked to each other at night when the guards were sparse, right, yeah, Yeah,

so that cackling noise still could be considered you know, residual if it was just something that was done in the night hours when they were they could sneak talking to each other if you. Will, right, right, Which who wouldn't do that? Right? So? The next one is the man starching searching

for an exit. Uh. This has been witnessed by visitors and investigators. Uh. The description is a shadowy male figure appears near older sections of the prison and seems to move slowly along the walls. Witnesses describe the figure as if it's searching

for something. The figure reportedly disappears when approached. Some investigators believe the figure may represent a residual haunting of a prisoner trying to escape. That's yeah, especially if it's kind of sneaking. Yeah, always sneaking. So, like I said before, the prison was doing a renovation in the nineteen nineties, and during

that renovation some things were captured, such as reporters or workers reported tools disappearing from work areas, doors slamming when no one was nearby. These events often occurred when workers were alone and in closed sections of the building. Several workers repeatedly refused to continue working in certain cell blocks after these incidents.

Yeah, you know, that's always one of the weirdest paranormal things, is things coming up missing, you know, because that of course brings it over to like ferries and brownies and things like that. It makes you wonder or if just if ghosts are just doing that, you know, they've become tricksters. You know. I like I wrote a I wrote a

blog article some years ago. It was a thought that I had that non residual spirits. So, you know, energies that are stuck in this plane, if you will, they might want to be noticed, They might have a want to be known, you know, so that potentially maybe maybe they're stuck here, you know, just like Ghostbusters said, are

stuck on this plane and they need something to release, and maybe that releases some you know, energetic exchange between you know, a person who is still living. Right, So, if if that's the case, moving stuff around, making themselves known, you know, is probably the easiest way. And I think it's a good description. Like Ghost the movie Ghost, you know,

when when he you know, the guy first dies, he can't interact with crap, right, yeah, but he had to learn how to use his new non physical body. And I think that's probably I think that from my ex experience, I think that's true as well, like people who have just died, when I interact with them using dowsing rods,

the rod movement is very like just slow and disjointed, like all of a sudden it'll swing one way because like they pushed it too hard or whatever. So yeah, again, I mean, if it's not necessarily a trickster thing, but just they're trying to get somebody's attention. And unfortunately, because of us here in Western society, where we dismiss a

lot of this stuff is just being you know, we're overworked or we're tired or we're stressed or whatever the case may be, it just goes it falls on deaf ears. Yeah, I agree with that. I was in my article I talked about when we talked about the Philip experiment that took place I was

a candidate. I think I wondered if that was not actually a psychic creation, but rather just a passing spirit that slipped into that ye persona if you will, so that it could get attention. I've always wondered that. I've always wondered that. All right, So moving on next, we have the feeling

of being touched. Multiple visitors have reported sensations including feeling a hand on their shoulder, a sudden push or tug, and scratching sensations. These experiences are often reported in cell block fourteen and near the hole. Yeah, it reminds me of several years ago. I went and did a I don't remember if you were there or not, but I

went and did a tour at night of Waverley and Jason Kirk, our friend Jason Kirk came with us. Came with me, and I remember he was like some he was like maybe a foot and a half ahead of me, and he was crouched down against the wall in the corridor where they you know, they turn off all the

lights on like the third floor, and they have you look down this long corridor. And he swears up and down that he was wearing a hoodie. He swears up and down something tugged on the hood on his jacket. Yeah, yep, yep, Nope. Sadly, I still have never been to Waverley.

Oh, that's that's unfortunate. Yeah, I have not done a tour yet, and I live literally five minutes. From, as say, right now, you're really close to it. M hmm. Yeah, well you know, maybe maybe that's a fiftieth fiftieth

birthday thing. Yeah, that could be fun. Yeah, get a bunch of people together and go up there, do a night tour. Yeah, ghost, that would be fun. That would be fun. Write that down.

Yeah. So anyways, again just kind of a general witnesses report sudden feeling of dread or nausea, uh, kind of immediately before or after that sensation of being touched, you know, which we we've talked about it before too, Like the idea that spirits oftentimes need to pull or absorb energy

from an area in order to do things to manifest themselves. Or whatever, like you know, Waverley, and I'd imagine this place too. They've probably got most electricity turned off to the building, if if it's on at all, So the only energy in the space they could pull from would be people. Yeah, right, what's that their devices or their devices, right,

And so that feeling of dread may be because it's siphoning energy off of you in order to manifest that thing that it's doing. I mean that would I mean, that's why we shield, you know, yep. So so you know, I wonder if people like you know,

this is when I didn't Waverley, This is before a time when I knew anything about shielding or grounding or anything, and so I didn't do any of that stuff. But I wonder if my experience would have been differently, you know, different if I had done those things. Yeah, absolutely so.

So bottom line, people, when you think you're going to a haunted house or any place that you expect to be haunted, do some shielding, do some grounding. Unless you want to be messed with. Yeah, unless you want to be and you want to take something home with Yeah.

Really, that's that's the most important part, is that you you know, you understand that you're likely going to bring something home with you. So nobody likes a hitchhiker. Right, especially at Waverley. And I'm sure Eastern. Yea, oh, I'm sure it's even worse there. Yeah, because Waverley was just tuberculosis. I mean it was just people

who were sick and dying. Like this penitentiary is like bad potentially bad people that you know, were put through hell. So I wouldn't even imagine the negative energies that like part of me wants to try remote viewing the penitentiary, but if I were to do that, I would really strongly shield before doing that.

So, yeah, you could take home Pep. Did you ever hear the story of Pep? No. Pep is the cat murdering dog that got a life sentence to Eastern Penitentiary back in nineteen twenty four. The governor sentenced him for killing a cat. Really yeah, seriously, and then he was pardoned in nineteen twenty nine, so he was there for

five years. Oh but there, if. You look online, look up Pep the cat murdering dog, there's a cute picture of him with his little mugshot and his numbers the whole nine yards. Yet we're and we're sure that's not ai. Yeah, I'm sure, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, alright,

so very cool. Not cool I mean in a way like how would you keep a dog from talking? Like inmates aren't allowed to talk, so how would you keep a dog like it just be barking? Like that would be its own level of psychological torture. Well, I'm sure they just had the dog there, you know,

used it as a way to like keep up inmate morale. And you think so, yeah, to get a dog in there. Yeah, like they they they bent the red tape instead of cutting it. Yeah, because it was so it was to say Pep allegedly murdered the governor's wife's cherished cat. But some people

think that the governor just donated his own dog to the prison to increase maate morale. Okay, so and he could have stunt, but he was pardoned five years later, so he. Probably claimed it on his claimed a million dollars on his taxes donating his cherished dog. Anyways, so during one

specific investigation by by a paranormal group, they caught an ev P. You know, so for anybody listening who doesn't know, EVP is electronic voice phenomenon. It's what we talked about just a few minutes ago, where you have a recorder and you catch a voice on it. Yeah, so when they're audio. During a late night investigation, audio recorders were

placed in several cell blocks and investigators asked questions in empty corridors. When the recording was later reviewed, a distinct voice responding to one of the questions said, leave. Man, I've heard some good e vps. Man that one would that would send my skin crawling. I mean that was my recreation. That wasn't me actually

playing the audio. Just in case anybody's wondering. Yeah, thank you, thank you. I've been working. Uh No one present during the session reported hearing the voice at the time, and the voice was only discovered during playback. If I could take just a moment and use this as an example and an attempt to harp on move on a little bit.

So move on for anybody who's listening doesn't know, stands for the Mutual UFO network. They've been around since the end of Project Blue Book, which was in the seventies, And people submit cases for investigation. If you submit a case for an investigation, that clue that includes media like audio, video or an image, and it was you and you

capture you like you captured it in the moment, but you didn't discover it until after until later on when you were reviewing your pictures of video you're like, oh, this looks really weird, and you submit your case. A lot of times, move on investigators will discount that footage because you didn't experience it at the time that the

thing is. And I would just like to say that that is a wrong position. I agree, because passive captures can be supportive of experiences, but they don't have to be like I was filming and I saw it at the same time, right. It just doesn't have to be that way. So I would say that's true for any

paranormal investigation as well. You know, I mean, I've got pictures that I went and took a picture at an event and only realized after the fact that I caught something exactly. And what if that same type of energy exists in the UFO UAP field right right, where maybe it only

gets picked up on infrared or gets picked up on saying and you didn't see it because you were, you know, had three cameras going. Right and you know, the you know, especially at night time, the eyes can be deceiving. They can deceive you especially. We've talked about it too with you know, the documentary

What the bleep do we know? When they speculate that, you know, our early Native Americans may not have even seen the European ships on the horizon because they had no frame of reference. So you know how much stuff does our minds filter out of our vision because we have no frame of reference. But a camera doesn't have

that filter, so it grabs it right, agreed. So anyways, that's my I'm off my soapbox for a minute point of order. So some of the patterns that are across these witness accounts are shadow figures, disembodied voices, sudden emotional shifts, physical sensations, and they mainly tend to occur in isolation, set ELL's punishment areas and long corridors with poor lighting. Now,

in nineteen seventy one, the prison was closed and inmates were moved to Graterford Prison and then in the site set abandoned for nearly twenty years. Wow. During that abandonment, vines overtook buildings, faral cats lived inside, and structures deteriorated, but renovation began in the nineteen eighties

and it reopened as a museum in nineteen ninety four, and then it was designated as a National Historic Landmark. And today you can go and take daytime tours and there is a major historic site. And felt that that is a major historic site in Philadelphia. Great. Yeah, so yeah, I mean it is is it is an an immensely

seems to be an immensely haunted site with an amazing history. Yeah. And the thing, the thing for me that just really bothers me. We talked about this a little bit and and on one of our astral Shrew episodes we talked about kind of the ethics of like, uh, hauntings and stuff,

and like part of me wants to go and anything that is like trapped, part of me wants to go and provide it the necessary energy for it to move. Yeah. But like you know, if I were to do that, uh, and hauntings and the penitentiary dropped off, and then that led to like visitation you know dropping off. You know,

like when I you know, could they sue me for for expelling hauntings in a location like. You know, that would be hilarious because I could see, you know, fifty years from now somebody doing a podcast on that trial. Right, Yeah, fifty years ago today, Josh Rutledge was sued

for releasing spirits from the even state have a mouth shot of devil made him? Do it? Have a moug shot of me holding one of those signs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I tell you what, It's somewhere that's been on my bucket list for a long time that

I want to see. Uh. I'd like to do a night tour and a day tour. Uh, do the day tour for the historical aspect of it, and then a night tour do a ghost hunt. I think would be amazing. See. See what we need to do, Stepan is you and I need to start a private investigation thing. We're

just like where we just investigate cases, just you and I, okay, And then once we're established, then that gives us the ability to go and talk to any paranormal investigation group in any city in any state and say, hey, we want to do an investigation with you with you yeah to you, right, and then we covered as our private people,

and then they covered as themselves and yeah, that's that's how you that's how you get the end, get her done. Let's how you get her done. And we're not gonna do no Zach Baggan's bull crap and start antagonizing these guys. No, we're gonna set them all free and get sued. Yeah, that's right, which you know, I'm not gonna lie.

That would be something to go into the history books for. Yeah, America is no longer haunted thanks to the Shadows signal, folks. Yeah, all that's left is residual hauntings. Sorry, yeah, amos. And and then there's a book that tells you, like like a TV guide that tells you when something is going to occur at a location you know. Then you

go and you tune in for the woman walking down the hallway and flipping on. The legs, for the guard in the tower. Ghostly guide or something, I don't know, ghost good. Yeah, it's like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it's the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Haunted, to the residuals.

How many people are gonna know what a TV guide is? I wonder I know. Well, and then we would get a residual anytime someone read our residual book. Yeah, that's right, residuals for residuals. Yep, let's get out of here, Josh.

And then the Ghostbuster people would sue us because we're using the term residual. That's true, that's true. But let's let's get out of here. Yeah, we're losing our minds. We're losing our minds, absolutely as usual. If anybody has been to Eastern Penitentiary, and I'm willing to bunch you Keith Age has been there, excuse me,

let us know your experiences in the comments or email us. Where can they email us any stories that they've got. The Shadows Signal Podcast at gmail dot com boo, Yeah. So send us any It doesn't have to be Eastern espun. You know your regular stories. We'd love to read those on the air. They're always fun. Other than that, yeah,

I definitely would love to hear in the comments any any people's personal experiences with the sp the Eastern State Penitentiary. Not what the extra extra, no extrasensory perception. Oh, this is why we gotta go, Josh. Let's get out of here, all right. Well, thank you guys so much for tuning into the Shadow Signal. It was a great episode talking

about Eastern State Penitentiary. Thank you, Josh for getting all that information together. But we're gonna go ahead and get out of here and get you get your appetites wet for next month, wondering what we're gonna do, and all that jazz. So we'll see you guys later. This has been Stephan. Stay close to the signal. Ear step This

has been Stephan. Stay in the shadows and listen for the signal. And this has been Josh. The truth is now all right. Good night, folks, have a good one. Stay spooky,